Cutting Edge 3 and a half  The Dream is Over
by patientalien
Summary: How the Cutting Edge 3 could have ended


**title** Cutting Edge 3 1/2: The Dream is Over  
><strong>author<strong> **patientalien**  
><strong>rating<strong> R  
><strong>summary<strong> How the Cutting Edge 3 should have ended  
><strong>notes<strong> Uh, I think **citizenjess** is the only one who's going to "get" this. Because, okay, Matt Lanter is in this ice-skating movie called "The Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream" and throughout the whole movie, they make a really big deal out of how his character never stretches properly and how, like, the Pamchenko is a super-deadly move, and there's foreshadowing galore and it gets to the end and SPOILER ALERT: they pull off the move perfectly and everyone lives happily ever after. So, uh, this is how the movie should have ended.

* * *

><p><em>"They're going for the Pamchenko! Flawless so far, perfect form, but wait! Conroy's down, and Delgado - oh!" A crack, a sickening thud. The camera jerkily closes in on the two skaters, then quickly cuts to commercial.<em>

The flowers in Zach's room are overpowering. He wants to get rid of all of them, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knows she'd say it was rude. People care about his recovery, such that it will be, and are just trying to be nice. He rewinds the tape, plays it over. His therapist has tried to take the tape away, but it's being replayed on every major news outlet and sports channel in the world, so it's not like he could escape it anyway.

Besides, with all the drugs they've got him on, it all kind of seems like a bad dream. Like any second, he's going to wake up and Alex's neck won't be broken and his right hamstring will still be attached where it's supposed to be, and he won't be having the "now, Zach, this means you won't be able to skate again," conversation with every fucking doctor who comes into his room.

Complete hamstring avulsion isn't something seen often, even in athletes of Zach's caliber. But Alex had warned him, hadn't she? She'd tried to get him to stretch better, to ease himself into their new routines, to do what he needed to do to keep his body from so completely betraying him. Even without warming up before their long-form, if he'd just _listened_to her, maybe he wouldn't be waiting for a surgical specialist to fly in from the States, and maybe Alex wouldn't be dead.

The what-ifs are overpowering, and Celeste's visits don't help matters. "I know how you feel," she says, as if her broken ankle can even possibly measure up to the bone-deep bruise and bunched muscles in his knee ("It snapped right off your pelvis, it came to rest right where your leg would normally bend," the doctor had said after the first MRI). As if it could even remotely measure up to killing his partner. He makes her leave the second time it happens, and has never in his entire life felt more alone.

_"They're going for the Pamchenko! Flawless so far, perfect form, but wait! Conroy's down, and Delgado - oh!" A crack, a sickening thud. The camera jerkily closes in on the two skaters, then quickly cuts to commercial._

When he wakes up from surgery, Alex's brother is there. He's surprised, sort of, but mostly groggy, and disoriented. He's not sure how long it's been since the accident - long enough for them to bury Alex back home? He expects the other man to hit him. Hell, if he had lost his sister because some golden child shitty-ass athlete couldn't even bother to stretch his fucking leg muscles, he probably would have killed the guy. But he's not dead, and Bobby looks sad, not angry.

"I'm sorry," he manages, and talking hurts. Everything hurts, and he looks for the first time, and his leg is up in some sort of harness and he can see his toes but he can't really move them and everything feels swollen and fragile.

"It was an accident," Bobby replies, and when Zach wakes up again, he's pretty sure it never really happened.

_"They're going for the Pamchenko! Flawless so far, perfect form, but wait! Conroy's down, and Delgado - oh!" A crack, a sickening thud. The camera jerkily closes in on the two skaters, then quickly cuts to commercial._

When he's recovered enough to fly, he and Jackie go back to the States. She wheels him into the middle of his big, empty house and leaves, letting him know that she'll be back to check on him later. He doesn't want to just sit in the fucking chair, so he decides he's going to walk to the kitchen. He can't, and she finds him the next day curled in on himself.

She's angry with him, he can tell, and he doesn't blame her. It's his fault, all of it, and he replays the video again and again and again and it's the snap of his muscle and the scream and the crack of her head hitting the ice. His physical therapist is frustrated with him; he won't do it. He can't. He's not going to skate again anyway, so what's the use. His therapist-therapist tries to get him into grief counseling, but she's gone and won't come back, so what's the use.

_"They're going for the Pamchenko! Flawless so far, perfect form, but wait! Conroy's down, and Delgado - oh!" A crack, a sickening thud. The camera jerkily closes in on the two skaters, then quickly cuts to commercial._

Again, and again, and again, and the glass walls of Zach's empty house close in on him.


End file.
